Rock Island daily Argus. (Rock Island, Ill.) 1886-1893, 1887-09-06
-TRAMPLED AND ROASTED.
FRlGHTFUL HOLOCAUST IN A THEA
TIRE AT EXETER, ENGLAND.

The Dread Cry of Fire Throws the Audi
ence into Panic and a Mad Rush for the
$50 and Is Probably Greater, with an
Unknown Number Wounded.
LONDON, Sept 6.-During the performance
of the "Romany Rye" in the theater at Ex-
eter Monday evening the building was dis
covered to be on fire The audience became
panic-stricken and made frantic rush for
the exits In spite OF the heroic efforts of the
attaches to reassure them and induce them to
go out quietly, the occupants Of the pit en-
gagged in an awful struggle for egress in the
narrow aisles. Men and women were delib-
erately knocked down and tramplei upon by
those behind them, and hundreds of persons
were almost entirely denuded in the terrible
fight for life The pit was finally cleared,
but large number of the occupants of that
portion of the house were seriously injured
and presented a horrible spectacle as they
reached the street
The occupants of the gallery did not fare SO
well There was only one very narrow exit
from the upper tier, involving the de-
scent of rather long flight OF
stairs, and here an almost indescriba-
BILE scene of terror and slaughter ensued.
The rush for the stairs was terrific, and in a
moment the entire passageway was blocked.
those persons who kept their feet being sup
ported by solid mass of PROSTATE humanity
The shrieks groans and curses of the i'm
| prisoned and the trampted, the wounded and
the dying were perfectly heartrending, hul
| there was no relief, and in a moment score;
| of men and women We're either sufocated tc
death or killed by being trodden upon.
A fire escape was at last brought to one o.
the gallery windows, and through thi
medium the pressure was relieved and grea
| many persons were lowered to the street A.
soon as the house had been cleared of tn,
living the work of removing the dead wa
begun, and sixty bodies were taken out b,
means of the fire escape The wounded sur
vivors were conveyed TO the hospital ant
| their number at this time cannot he definitel,
ascertained, but ID is very large. The tota
number of lives lost is estimated at 100, bu
may exceed that figure.
The fire started in the flies during the fourtI
act of the play. When the flames were dis
| covered drop scene was lowered to proven
the current of air from increasing the blaze
After this was done the actors and stag
hands threw open a door to make their es
cape, W hen the draft caused the flames t
burst through the drop scene and ignite tn
| woodwork Of the gallery
The flames overlook the hindmost of til
unfortunate people who were wedged in tn
corridor and stairway, and literally roaste
them alive There was no escape for then
the fire being at their backs and a compact
immovable mass of human beings in from
The firemeu reached the upper windows an
took out all of the people they could find, bu
most of them were dead and many Other
died soon after they were taken out.
The surgeons in the hospitals revived a fe
persons who were thought to lie dead froi
suffocation. but at O'Clock in the mornin
nearly 100 corpses laid in rows on the foo
and these did not comprise the total numbt
of the dead, as great many bodies wei
burned TO ashes in the theatre Some of Il
dead were simply sufocated aud not at a
mutilated or burned. The occupants of II
dress circle escaped without injury, the il
iured and dead being confined to the pit an
the upper circles The building was d
stroyed.
LATER-One hundred and thirty bodi
: have been taken out of the theatre thus ia
: OF these 100 were Men and boys, and thirt
women A score or more of the injured We
taken to the hospital, and a large numb
were taken to their homes.